iPhone Friday - Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond - Highley Polished, Welcoming, And Has A Great Tutorial

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond from developers Cygames on my iPhone 14 Pro.

Version 1.4.10 Played

Demo Play Thursday - Old School Rally On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Old School Rally from Frozen Lake Games, Astrolabe, and Meridiem.

Backlog Conquering - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy HD On PS3 - The Final Part

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy from the 2012 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy that remastered the games and brought them into HD. This series is my first time playing any of the games from the initial trilogy, tho i have played the PSP game #Daxter.

Check out the other parts of this play through:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fvi6KUY0vD8

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/bf7Obhhh8K4

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/oMqaSd8rB4k

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/OCL0AqLHW-o

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/6fpsgoVY6cY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/sTmZpFlQ1Ps

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/jlGBporjYVw

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/bLaY4ko2VC0

Part 9 - https://youtu.be/1W14Q9FjASo

Stories on Tuesday - Underworld Office: Ghost Story - Part 1

The new story is Underworld Office: Ghost Story. i'm playing this on iPhone 14 pro.

At the moment, i'm unsure if this will be a chapter each video or not. there is some sort of credit system that's not explained. so in this video, i played through until i ran out of credits, which was the start of Chapter 2.

Cloud Monday - Patapon 2 Remastered - Part 2 - Streaming The Game Is A Good Way To Play It

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Patapon 2 Remastered via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

In Part 2 we came across a hint screen, when the game is loading, that revealed that there's no punishment for failing. i actually experienced this first hand when i lost all my Patapon in a mission only for all of them to be unharmed when i did something next. this is an example of how casual the game is. the combination of casual and portable mechanics work well together to produce a game that's good to stream from the cloud.

In Part 1, i highlighted how i was using the pulsing of the screen to help get the rhythm and how pressing options brought up the command list. across both parts doing this might've meant that i missed a turn or two attacking the enemy but i never felt like it was a huge cost to pay. the levels we've previously played change so that when we return to grind items, it's different from the first time we were there.

But i do feel that grinding is an aspect of this game that's unavoidable. i showed in this part how i needed just 1 item  to make new Patapon but always didn't have enough of it even after all the levels i've done. to make new Patapon i'll need to grind out the first hunting level and then to upgrade it i'd need to re-do many other levels. as these levels are short, they can be quickly dealt with, but the whole grinding aspect of the gameplay might be a bit repetitive and a deal breaker for some.

Across two parts i have had fun playing #Patapon2 from the cloud. it's not a perfect experience, but it's good enough where i would probably play this game via the cloud in the future rather than download it. the game wants us to play and win, so when we make a mistake the consequences aren't too harsh. as long as we remember to save before doing a run, there aren't many consequences if we're disconnected.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/t9RhqarCw2k

Online Saturday - Tetris99 - 50th Maximus Cup - Kirby Air Riders

In Tetris 99 it's the 50th Maximus Cup this weekend. the theme to unlock is Kirby Air Riders. i played the Switch version and managed to finish in the top 50 in all the games i played.

Let me know in the comments how well you did!

Mobile Friday - Hungry Hearts Ramen - An Easy To Play Restaurant Game With A Nice Community Story

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Hungry Hearts Ramen from developers GAGEX on my iPhone 14 Pro.

I have seen these restaurant games from GAGEX in the App Store for a while and have nearly reviewed a few of them, but Hungry Hearts Ramen is the first one i have and i'm glad i did as it was a fantastic time. i didn't set out to record a video this long, i was just having such a nice time with the game that i lost track of time as i played.

Time is perhaps the only issue i have with Hungry Hearts Ramen. throughout the video you'll hear me say how i would like a pause button or want the game to pause during the story segments. there is a day mechanic here because customers come to the restaurant on different days but this isn't explicitly said by the game, rather i inferred it from the customer menu section.

For the most part, Hungry Hearts Ramen does a great job at getting across how to play the game and what does what. the tutorial is simple, telling us what to do via text and pictures rather then showing via a gif. but what was nice and surprising is how they use the customers, the Shrine Maiden in particular, to help remind us what to do.

I've highlighted the community aspect of this game in the title because i feel like each of the characters we've met so far in the game are very well written. they come across as genuine and interesting. mistakes and assumptions are made by our main characters but no one seems to get angry. as we played, we got to know a few of them better than others and in doing so this unlocks more food and drink options in the game. there are also customers who make delivery requests. the game makes it clear there's no pressure to fulfil them if you can't and these customers will call back in the future. but if you're able to their requests, we get even more story.

As well as the community aspect, there is another story that we've barely touched upon in this video. i won't go into spoilers, but this seems to be the second time we've opened a restaurant in this town and there seems to have been more of us the first time we did this. i speculate in the video what might have happened but there's no reason why it can't be sad or happy as the stories we've encountered so far have been both.

Graphically, i enjoyed the art in Hungry Hearts Ramen. it's a simple design that seems to look right for the era. the music is nice, too. but after the hour and a half i played the music was starting to get a little repetitive. 

Hungry Hearts Ramen does have adverts. i don't mind mobile games, especially the free to play ones, having them. but what really impressed me was how well Hungry Hearts Ramen deals with it. there's a TV in the restaurant that will play an add if you want and that'll restore your characters energy. As our characters are old, and they themselves mention about getting tired, the energy mechanic is well tied into the game universe. There is a banner advert at the bottom of the screen throughout this video. but it doesn't get in the way, it's not distracting, and my focus throughout was in the middle of the screen. And then there are the full screen adverts. thankfully the game put's up a little message that we're going to an ad break, plays the ad, puts the break screen up, and then get's us back into action. it's that attention to detail that makes this simple restaurant game feel really polished and something great.

After playing Hungry Hearts Ramen, i can say that it does make it into my top free to play games of the year list. i won't say where, but it's that good and well worth checking out. there's something for a lot of players here and it's all good.

Version 1.0.1 Played

Demo Play Thursday - GIGASWORD On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of GIGASWORD from Akupara Games and Studio Hybrid.

I saw the pixel art on the PSN and thought it looked great, but i hadn't watched a video for GIGASWORD so i was surprised when it started playing how good it was. But what's odd is how there are times when there's no music, not even some ambiance. going from some really great music to nothing at all to then more music was quite odd. You'll have to let me know in the comments if this is the case with the retail release of the game or not.

I quite enjoyed the start to GIGASWORD, i thought the opening segment worked great as a tutorial. the level design and puzzles worked great. nothing felt challenging and progress was nice and smooth. But one problem with this demo is how little it communicates to the player that this is a demo. when you start, there's nothing on the home screen that says "demo", nor is there any links to pre-order/buy the game from the PSN. the demo doesn't say what the limits to the demo are either. so i got to a point in the demo where i couldn't make progress and i have no idea if that's because i missed something or if that's the demo ending.

Or it could be a result of the demo crashing. it's not often that a demo fully crashes in this series, but it happened here with GIGASWORD. i got to the PS4 home screen, submitted the PS4 error report, and loaded up the game again. But once i was back in the game, i never made any progress. You'll have to let me know in the comments if i missed something in the demo or how this differs from the released game.

Even tho it crashed and i'm not thrilled with how little it communicated to me how it's a demo, i did enjoy my time with GIGASWORD. i thought the balance between platforming, puzzles, and fighting was spot on for just starting the game, i really liked the pixel art, and the music was fantastic and cleverly hid the loop. so if you're curious about GIGASWORD, i'd recommend checking it out.

Backlog Conquering - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy HD On PS3 - Part 9

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy from the 2012 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy that remastered the games and brought them into HD. This series is my first time playing any of the games from the initial trilogy, tho i have played the PSP game Daxter.

Check out the other parts of this play through:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fvi6KUY0vD8

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/bf7Obhhh8K4

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/oMqaSd8rB4k

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/OCL0AqLHW-o

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/6fpsgoVY6cY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/sTmZpFlQ1Ps

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/jlGBporjYVw

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/bLaY4ko2VC0

Stories on Tuesday - High School Dog Simulator - 4 Different Endings Played

For a one off video, i played the iOS Visual Novel High School Dog Simulator from Shibamaru.

The game has 16 endings, but for this video i played through 4 of them. You'll have to let me know in the comments what happens in the other stories.

Cloud Monday - Patapon 2 Remastered - Part 1 - No Auto Saves But Playing To The Beat Is Fine

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of Patapon 2 Remastered via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I've not really tried a rhythm game as part of Cloud Monday so it was always going to be interesting whether the delay from streaming from the cloud would make playing the game much harder or even impossible. i admit, i may not have a lot of natural rhythm and i can easily loose focus and loose the beat. so i'll be honest, i can't say for sure if streaming this game from the cloud was the reason for issues i occasionally had or if it was just me.

But Patapon 2 Remastered's attempts at helping the player actually also make it a decent game to stream from the cloud. The game doesn't rely on just audio cues or just visual cues, it uses both. when you watch this video, watch the frame of the video as it pulses to the beat. having both means that if there's an audio issue, you can still see the beat and if there's a visual issue you can still hear the beat. In this part, two or three times we got some Stream Tearing where the video we're watching from the cloud had grey patches in it. but because the i could still see the frame and was often focusing on it to stay on beat, the Stream Tearing was never distracting and i was able to keep the beat fine.

The only real negative i have after this Part is that i don't think the game has auto saves. we're able to do manual saves from the main home area, but once the action starts we're unable to pause and unable to save. i tried to find auto saves, but i couldn't find it. Patapon 2 Remastered also has a weird thing where when you save the option screen backs out as if you hit cancel by mistake. a couple of times i had to check whether i saved or not. Whilst the saving is quick, it'd be nicer if the game made it clearer that it had saved.

Demo Play Thursday - Outlanders On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Outlanders from Pomelo Games and Big Games Machine.

I'm a bit behind schedule when it comes to demos so Outlanders is already out now, but i am glad i played it. It's one of my longer videos and yet i only completed the tutorial and 2 scenarios. i don't think i finished the demo nor do i know how much more there was to it. I never saw this demo say it was a demo

I appreciated that the demo came with a tutorial, but it wasn't as comprehensive as i expected. it taught the basic controls of the game but never went into how this game can be won. what's particularly frustrating is how the first scenario i played differed from the tutorial. i think the first scenario should act as a tutorial, too. there appears to be a village elder/leader that doesn't really have any interactions with us, so they would've been great offering some advice and tips.

That's not to say this is an overly complicated game. Outlanders tells the player what their goals are for each scenario, but not how to get there. this does mean that even tho i achieved and completed the first scenario, i do think i could go back and maybe do it 5 minutes quicker, if not more. This is also true for the second scenario, which i barely finished in the time limit. as this is a demo, i don't know if there is a reason to go back and re-do past scenarios. if this game was on a PlayStation or Xbox console then perhaps there would achievements to get by re-doing past levels, but here on Switch i don't know.

Personally, i enjoyed my time with Outlanders. it does have that "one more turn" appeal to it. if it had leaderboards where i could compare my completion time with my friends, then it could become a chill game to play and a competitive one to play, too. if you're curious about this, i would recommend trying out the demo. it isn't as complicated as a Civilisation game, but some of the core Outlanders mechanics are different enough that it may take some time to adapt. the key mechanic i understood was dismantling and moving gathering jobs. for some aspects of village life, you do need to move things around and more people from job to job.

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - From Start to Finish

The playthrough of the Stories on Tuesday PS3 game XBlaze Lost: Memories, from Arc System Works and Aksys Games, is now finished.

The only editing i had to do to get this video under the 12 hour limit was to increase the speed of the majority of the loading to double it's normal speed. so this video does have the post credit scene.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fPjjATSfhcM

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/sY-nYy_MXxQ

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/w28xapHoB5w

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/_fXKI60OVu8

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/dM2MF4rEMWY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/3ZWKSu685X0

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/pfw0d4SU9n8

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/_EoAXrMH-C0

Part 9 - https://youtu.be/Qj-RbugUJmc

Part 10 - https://youtu.be/P24kH_GSjPQ

Part 11 - https://youtu.be/48QBEpqc-kk

Part 12 - https://youtu.be/ilXAW6n7mT8

Cloud Monday - Legasista - Part 2 - The Cloud Is An OK Way To Play If You Don't Have A PS3

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS3 version of Legasista via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

After over 2 hours of gameplay, i wasn't able to finish the tutorial for Legasista so there are still some questions i have about this game that i wasn't able to answer, the main being whether you're able to save in the dungeons or not. during the tutorial, i wasn't able to, but i wondered if in longer dungeons if there would be save options. if you know, please let me know in the comments.

You're able to manually save before you enter dungeons in the hub world. there is an auto save option that has to be turned on. it will save when you return from a dungeon but as we found out in this video it won't save until character conversations have finished. there is an option to press Start to skip the conversations to try and trigger the auto save or manual save, but there doesn't seem to be a way to read the conversation that was skipped.

Having some way to manually save is better than nothing. Legasista is also a game that hasn't been re-released on other platforms, it's only on PlayStation 3. so streaming it from the cloud is an OK way to play the game if you don't have access to a PS3. but it's not perfect and a disconnection could set you back a lot if there's no way to save in a multi level dungeon.

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - Part 12 - The Final Part

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS3 version of XBlaze Lost: Memories from Arc System Works and Aksys Games.

This is the final part of my playthrough. it includes the credits and post credits scene.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fPjjATSfhcM

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/sY-nYy_MXxQ

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/w28xapHoB5w

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/_fXKI60OVu8

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/dM2MF4rEMWY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/3ZWKSu685X0

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/pfw0d4SU9n8

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/_EoAXrMH-C0

Part 9 - https://youtu.be/Qj-RbugUJmc

Part 10 - https://youtu.be/P24kH_GSjPQ

Part 11 - https://youtu.be/48QBEpqc-kk

Cloud Monday - Legasista - Part 1 - Unable To Save In The Starting Slow Tutorial Dungeons

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS3 version of Legasista via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Legasista is a game i own on PlayStation 3 but not one i remember starting so whilst this isn't a Backlog Conquering video it's adjacent to that playlist as well as this Cloud Monday playlist.

Some of the PS3 RPG's i've played for this playlist have done well and been fine streamed from the cloud. in Legasista, you're able to save before you go into a dungeon and, if you turn it on in the options, the game will auto save when you come out of the dungeons. but at the moment i've been unable to save whilst i'm in the dungeon. so far, i've only been doing tutorial dungeons so there's a chance that when i get to the "real" dungeons the situation will change. you'll have to come back for part 2 where i hope to make it that far into the game.

I had a solid stream from the cloud today and noticed no visual artifacts in the video we were watching. there was maybe 1 or 2 slight audio blips, but other than that even the controls were good today. If i were to get macro blocking, there's a good chance it wouldn't matter too much. the background assets repeat frequently, so if some of them were a bit blocky because of the macro blocking, i would still be able to understand it as those assets are used elsewhere. The characters don't have fine detail, but they do make great use of lighting and are quite big on screen, so whilst it would be noticeable, we would still be able to understand what's happening. the text tho is my main concern. there doesn't seem to be a way to make it bigger and i've been unable to bring up the text log of what's been previously said, even tho it's in the options. with the game audio in Japanese, and no way to change that, macro blocking in the text could be detriment to the story.

Demo Play Thursday - Nuclear Gladiators 3000 On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Nuclear Gladiators 3000 from Turbo Napalm.

I've played a few games like Vampire Survivors on mobile as part of Mobile Friday and just in my free time, but Nuclear Gladiators 3000 is the first time i've played one on consoles. the big concern i have with these games is that things can get crazy, not just in terms of difficulty but also in terms of explosions and stuff happening on screen and the worry is always can the platform i'm playing it on handle it. thankfully, after playing the DEMO i can say that the Switch was fine playing Nuclear Gladiators 3000.

With it's rocking soundtrack, it makes a good first impression. it's going after a certain 80's vibe and i think pulls it off, tho i would've like the odd sax solo or something similar to The Transformers Movie.  Nuclear Gladiators 3000 also does a good job in explaining what the goals are and how to play. i do feel that for the first couple of runs, this could all be simplified and then when you get your first sponsor things could then open up more.

The goal seems simple enough. you defeat wave after wave of enemies until trying to survive for 3 minutes to get to the next stage. by blowing things up and doing combo's, the audience gets more enthusiastic. by defeating enemies, you're able to level up weapons and abilities in a run. when the run is over, you're scores and audience values are converted into Freedom Bucks. these can be spent on permanent upgrades which will help you go further in the next run. But as you'll see in this video, i was never able to survive for 3 minutes on the third stage. the leap from second to third stage seemed a little too big.

As a demo, it's fun to play and worth checking out. But there is a downside to it. there is no trailer nor any screenshots. there's not even a message from the developers. so all i get to use is one character. i don't know how many others there are, how many stages there are, or sponsors. the demo succeeded in showing me the game mechanics but failed in showing me what the game has to offer.

Backlog Conquering - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy HD On PS3 - Part 8

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy from the 2012 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy that remastered the games and brought them into HD. This series is my first time playing any of the games from the initial trilogy, tho i have played the PSP game Daxter.

Check out the other parts of this play through:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fvi6KUY0vD8

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/bf7Obhhh8K4

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/oMqaSd8rB4k

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/OCL0AqLHW-o

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/6fpsgoVY6cY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/sTmZpFlQ1Ps

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/jlGBporjYVw

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - Part 11

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS3 version of XBlaze Lost: Memories from Arc System Works and Aksys Games.

This part started with me choosing the other option from Part 10, that gave us the game over. this is a bit more of a happier part, in comparison to the previous few, but it's still frustrating watching Es make the same mistakes as before and not trusting those around her enough. But it does seem like she has forgotten why she's back so maybe we can cut her some slack.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fPjjATSfhcM

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/sY-nYy_MXxQ

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/w28xapHoB5w

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/_fXKI60OVu8

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/dM2MF4rEMWY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/3ZWKSu685X0

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/pfw0d4SU9n8

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/_EoAXrMH-C0

Part 9 - https://youtu.be/Qj-RbugUJmc

Part 10 - https://youtu.be/P24kH_GSjPQ

Cloud Monday - Digimon Survive - Part 2 - Streaming From The Cloud Is A Good Way To Play It

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Digimon Survive via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

In the first Part, https://youtu.be/kjyaV_4XsyY, it was clear how good the game's save system was. it was an Auto save that's pretty clear to see on screen when it's in action, typically before/after a talking set piece, and there's also the manual save option which can save the game at a specific point in a conversation. when we start this Part, we load right in to the middle of the conversation we left the game before.

When there's only a 20 second window to save before being disconnected from the service, being able to save and knowing when the game itself last saved is crucial and Digimon Survive does a great job at it. One of the reasons i feel like it's one of the better games we've played via the Cloud also comes down to the game's art style. none of the Digimon we've encountered so far has fine detail. their art style is simple and relies on expressions. if the game was to suffer from macro blocking, so instead of fine detail we get larger squares of color, there's a higher chance of such squares not getting in the way of the Digimon's design. their character models are large so there's a higher chance of the squares appearing in color anyway. the subtitles on screen are also rather large. if macro blocking were to occur in the subtitle box it would be obvious, but it's unlikely to obscure the whole world due to the size of it so for the most part text should be legible enough. if things did get rough then it's easy enough to pause and maybe even save and wait for this macro blocking to pass.

The visual novel style of gameplay also lends itself to being played from the cloud. this game has a "Backlog" feature, something fairly common amongst visual novels, where you're able to look back at text already spoken. so if there was macro blocking obscuring text you're able to check what it actually said. I think you're also able to check what was set in a cut scene, if you had to end it to save, but i haven't tested that out. 

Digimon Survive isn't a large install, the PSN Store say's it's 6.34GB so for many installing it will be a sensible option. but i do feel that playing it from the cloud is just as good of an experience. there is one added benefit for those who sometimes forget what they've installed on a console and that's whilst the icon will be on the home screen no space is taken up. so if you do forget to uninstall it when it leaves PlayStation Plus, it'll take up no space and you can add the icon into a "To Buy" folder as a Wishlist" of sorts on your console.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - November's Eggstra Work – 139 Top Score!

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This weekend is November's Eggstra Work Event in Splatoon 3 on Switch. I have felt terrible since Friday with a migraine and general queasiness, so i was unable to Live Stream during the weekend. i got out of bed for a little bit to take part in the event. i got 10 matches done before i gave up due to general fatigue. my highest score was 139 in my tenth and final match. i don't know if this is good enough for bronze. let me know in the comments what your scores were!

Mobile Friday - Seven Knights Re:Birth - A Good Turn Based RPG That You Can Control Or Watch

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Seven Knights Re:Birth from developer Netmarble on my iPhone 14 Pro.

I've had Seven Knights Re:Birth installed on my phone for a while and had noticed that the game was constantly being updated. But at 251.4 MB, there's even more to download once you start the game. to it's credit i did appreciate that the game let me start with a guest account and it gave me a heads up about the additional 5GB download, warning that it was best to download it over Wi-Fi. what surprised me was that the game was able to tell me that i was currently connected to Wi-Fi. Games have warned that these data installs should be down over Wi-Fi, but this was the first time i remember a game saying what my current connection was.

The install section is just a short slideshow with 1 song playing on loop. but when it stops and you launch the game we're greeted by a cinematic intro that looks cool. again, the game surprised me by then seamlessly transitioning from the cinematic to a gameplay tutorial to back to the intro, to gameplay story telling. it makes a fantastic first impression.

With such a spectacle for an introduction, the bar is high for the game to reach during normal gameplay and for the most part i think it reaches it. Seven Knights Re:Birth is a turn based RPG that gives players the choice to control the fight or to watch it happen. personally, once the ability to watch was unlocked i never went back to controlling the characters manually because it was such a pleasure to watch. It's a similar effect to Football Manager, a game where you spend time building the team and then watch them in action. in Seven Knights Re:Birth i was assigning characters to the team, equipping them, and then watching them attack enemies.

Between the action stuff is the story stuff. i'll be honest, i kinda saw the direction it was going to go and correctly guessed it. So the story maybe a little generic, but the presentation of said story is well done. the character interactions on screen remind me of larger console games. for a game like Seven Knights Re:Birth, this video isn't long enough to get a sense of the true story but for now there's enough here for me to want to continue playing.

Version 1.08.06 Played

Demo Play Thursday - Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit from Retroware, Mega Cat Studios, and Programancer. 

Whilst i have been watching their video content probably from near the beginning, i have never played any of the videogames. when i recorded this video i thought that this was just a port of a previous Angry Video Game Nerd game but i have since learned that this is a brand new game. so apologies if things get a little confusing in the video.

My history with videogames starts more from the 16bit era with the Mega Drive, but i did play a few 8bit games on the Master System and i've played pixel looking sidescrollers before so for me it wasn't too unexpected when the game started with no tutorial. But as this is a demo there's a chance that the final game has a tutorial of sorts. you'll have to let me know in the comments if this game does have one or not.

Graphically, it sure is an 8bit looking game and it comes with some of the gameplay limitations i expected from such a game. an easy example is how you can only shoot horizontally. there's no up or down shooting. But what was unexpected and very welcomed was how the game isn't sticking to the rules i was used to back then. it was common in games to have jumps into the unknown but here the stages have been built in such a way that you can always see at least 1 platform to aim for when jumping down.

Personally, i found the normal difficulty to be hard and changed it to easy to beat the demo. difficulty in game's like this are rather subjective so whilst i'd recommend starting on easy then going up to normal, for those who like a challenge and like learning pattens the normal difficulty could be a good start.

There was a bug at the start of the game. the FMV sequence featuring the Nerd himself was out of sync. when i changed difficulty and started again, the same sequence played but it worked fine. i don't know if this is unique to the demo or a bug in the PS4 version. you'll have to let me know in the comments. but i will send an email out to the developers to let them know what happened.

Backlog Conquering - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy HD On PS3 - Part 7

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy from the 2012 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy that remastered the games and brought them into HD. This series is my first time playing any of the games from the initial trilogy, tho i have played the PSP game #Daxter.

Check out the other parts of this play through:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fvi6KUY0vD8

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/bf7Obhhh8K4

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/oMqaSd8rB4k

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/OCL0AqLHW-o

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/6fpsgoVY6cY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/sTmZpFlQ1Ps

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - Part 10

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS3 version of XBlaze Lost: Memories from Arc System Works and Aksys Games.

This is the tenth part. I got a Game Over in this part, it was quite unexpected. there are more choices to be made now!

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fPjjATSfhcM

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/sY-nYy_MXxQ

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/w28xapHoB5w

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/_fXKI60OVu8

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/dM2MF4rEMWY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/3ZWKSu685X0

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/pfw0d4SU9n8

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/_EoAXrMH-C0

Part 9 - https://youtu.be/Qj-RbugUJmc

Cloud Monday - Digimon Survive - Part 1 - It's Easy To Save And Has Frequent Auto Saves

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of Digimon Survive via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Digimon Survive will be leaving the PlayStation Plus service this month so i wanted to see if playing it from the Cloud would be a good way to play it before it's removed. When it's removed from PlayStation Plus, unless you've bought it, it'll stop working on your PS4 or PS5.

Digimon Survive is a Visual Novel style game that uses that style of game to tell it's story whilst also combining a tactics style fighting mechanic and also have a Mobile Phone explore your location feature. in this hour and a half i played for Part 1, all these different styles work well together and feel cohesive.

How a game saves is important when playing a game from the Cloud. PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service gives users a 20 second warning before disconnecting. it's important to know when the game autosaves and how to do manual saves. in Digimon Survive, the auto save is clearly mentioned on screen and happens before cinematics, where manual saves aren't possible, and after chapters. during typical Visual Novel sections, we're able to pause the game and save manually.

the stream quality was great during Part 1. this helped highlight the graphical style of Digimon Survive which i quite enjoyed. there may not be a lot of small details, but the art style and and use of colors is nice. we saw in the first battle at the start of the game that the Digimon are drawn in a flat 2D style whilst the battle stage is 3D. everything was clear to see and importantly I didn't notice a lag in the controls during menus, story, or battle sections, unlike during the previous game with Cyberpunk 2077.

Mobile Friday - Etheria: Restart - Graphics, Music, And Story Make A Great First Impression

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Etheria: Restart from developer XD Entertainment on my iPhone 14 Pro.

Etheria: Restart had been on my phone for a while but it was after it's big 1.0 update in September that i was reminded about it. maybe i missed it, but i don't remember seeing it high in the charts when i'm looking for mobile games.

The title of this video is not quite accurate. the first thing the game does when you start it is download a 2.49GB update to the game. there was no prompt, no warning about doing this over mobile networks, and there was no cinematic or artwork shown to make the time pass quicker. the screen the game starts with, and it's music, is kept whilst the update is downloaded. So the very first impression of the game isn't a good one.

But the remaining hour and a half does help redeem Etheria: Restart. I quite enjoyed the art style of the game. it's futuristic, but not full Cyberpunk. the game does a lot with color, probably because fine textures would push phones too hard, and pulls it off well. each of the characters we meet and use in this video are all distinct from each other not just in terms of their design but also their personalities and voice acting.

The world they inhabit is split into two. there's the real world, and then there the computer world Etheria. they look very different from each other, too. the real world was ravaged by nature whilst Etheria has a more clean future look. But then there's Genesis, a virus plaguing Etheria and those who inhabit it and turning them into monsters if they're not saved quick enough. these three styles do work together. coupled with the story i've had so far, the world mostly ties together and feels cohesive.

With combat being somewhat simple, i found the controls to be easier than some other mobile games i've played. a problem with a phone screen is it's size. some games may have cool cinematic set pieces and insane combat, but as soon as you try to move the camera you end up hitting buttons and doing things you don't want to. at this point in the game, it wasn't an issue for me.

In this video i played the Prologue and first part of the first chapter. the pace may look slow, but it didn't feel it. i was enjoying the world, the story, and i did want to know more. But after talking to my community about this, my thought's about how AI has been used in this game might actually be true. in the video i joked how their MiniDisc looking device for summoning kinda looks like someone told AI to make MiniDisc futuristic. but there's also some confusion i had about who or what the Animus are. i thought they were the virtual avatars of those in the world. but it doesn't seem like it, humans and Animus are described as being separate. that kinda detail feels like either an AI translation error or it's just been missed.

Right at the end of the video i noticed a stamina system. up to this point in the game, it hadn't crossed my mind that this sorta game would have one. i had been playing and enjoying the story. But now i know that this is in the game, i am concerned about how the game will change. it almost feels like the first part of the game is one style and the rest of it is something else. when games have stamina systems there's usually two reasons for it. 1, they don't want players seeing all the story right away so will slow them down. and 2, it's a way to add monetisation to the game, or a grind for those wanting to keep it free.

From what i played in this video, i couldn't tell you what it is. i don't know how the game is going to change or how well this is balanced. so if you know, talk about it in the comments. all i can say for now is that Etheria: Restart makes a good second impression. there maybe some questions about how AI was used in development of it. And i can't say for sure that the game you play at the start is the game you'll be playing throughout.

Version 1.0.1 Played

Demo Play Thursday - Majogami On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Majogami from Inti Creates.

The demo for Majogami is short, but because of the game's style and art direction it does leave an impression. the demo starts quite quickly and immediately begins with some story. once it's finished, the tutorial begins and it's quite simple at first. you're introduced to something then get to do it in-game. what's great is that for more complicated things, the game will show videos on what to do. even tho we end up at the tutorial quite abruptly, it's pretty decent.

The Demo seems to be from the start of the game and is essentially the game's opening prologue. we get more story, more tutorials, and then we reach a boss fight. as it's the start of the game, i never felt like i was in danger even tho i was being hit often, but it did take some time to wear down the boss. i do worry that this could get longer as you progress through the game.

I have to imagine that on the OLED Switch, Majogami looks fantastic. i have a launch model Switch and i felt that it ran fine and looked great. the music isn't bad either. with good controls, a fantastic tutorial, a story that leaves you wanting to know more, and of course great style, i'd say that this demo for Majogami is a good one and well worth checking out.

Backlog Conquering - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy HD On PS3 - Part 6

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy from the 2012 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy that remastered the games and brought them into HD. This series is my first time playing any of the games from the initial trilogy, tho i have played the PSP game Daxter.

Check out the other parts of this play through:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fvi6KUY0vD8

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/bf7Obhhh8K4

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/oMqaSd8rB4k

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/OCL0AqLHW-o

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/6fpsgoVY6cY

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - Part 9

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS3 version of XBlaze Lost: Memories from Arc System Works and Aksys Games.

This is the ninth part. After how sad Part 8 ended, let's see what happens in the story in this part. without spoiling anything, the story isn't over yet!

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fPjjATSfhcM

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/sY-nYy_MXxQ

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/w28xapHoB5w

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/_fXKI60OVu8

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/dM2MF4rEMWY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/3ZWKSu685X0

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/pfw0d4SU9n8

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/_EoAXrMH-C0

Cloud Monday - Cyberpunk 2077 - PT2 - Shooting Is Affected By Controller Lag

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I noticed it in the first video, especially during the tutorial, that there's noticeable lag in controller inputs. for the most part, most other games i've played as part of this series haven't had this issue. the worst i remember was Rogue Legacy 2, but that had in it's options a "BETA" feature to improve latency in the controls at the expense of some screen tearing. a quick look in the options showed that the game seemed to be in a console controller mode and couldn't be made more sensitive. 

What this mostly means is that it's going to take longer to adjust to the games shooting mechanics. i personally found it difficult to aim and keep the aim constantly on an enemy. it's hard to say this early into such a long game whether this is something you can adjust to your self or if you're able to spec your character, by stats or equipment, in such a way that it minimises the negative effects. If you play this game via the Cloud, it'll be interesting to hear from you how you dealt with the shooting and controller lag. the tutorial does show how you can use hacking and melee combat so you're not strictly forced to always use guns. it could be a simple change of play style at the start of the game, until upgrades and better equipment make the shooting better, is how you should play it.

The quality of the video stream we got in this part wasn't as good as it was in Part 1. it was mostly Stream Tearing, where one or two of the frames of video we got were lacking information, so there were little bits of gray on screen. in a game as stylised as Cyberpunk 2077 it was noticeable and whilst it didn't affect my gameplay i can see how it happening whilst driving or during a shoot out would be quite a negative experience. In this part i did get to the infamous driving shoot out section and it was rough. the framerate dropped lower than i had experienced up to this point and this made the shooting even worse. this wasn't a streaming issue, this is just the game.

It's difficult to say whether Cyberpunk 2077 is a game better streamed than downloaded to console. it already has it's own issues regardless of how you play it. But streaming it does seem to add one or two more. it's a big download and it's not going to get patched anymore or get any of the DLC so i think i would prefer to stream this from the Cloud rather than having it take up space on my HDD. the streaming experience isn't great but it doesn't detract from the game too much. Let me know in the comments what you chose to do.

Check out Part 1 at - https://youtu.be/ALv_ddXCx9Q

Mobile Friday - COSMO PANIC - An Easy To Play Retro Style Wave Based Shooter That Needs More Polish

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried COSMO PANIC from developer FUNDOSHI PARADE on my iPhone 14 Pro.

On the App Store, this game's icon not only looked cool but i also immediately had an idea as to it's gameplay. checking out the screenshots revealed it to be a retro style shooter.

When we start the game we're greeted to an opening crawl inspired by Star Wars. it tells an interesting story, but i suspect that's the only time we're going to be given story by the game. 

The first time playing was pleasant as there's a decent tutorial telling us how to move and what to do. i found it useful and a surprise that there was one. unfortunately, the tutorial kinda just stops. when we lost, we were greeted by a screen that i didn't immediately realise was the game's home screen. i was expecting a result screen or a story screen. i think the game needs to continue it's tutorial to help guide the player better and explain things more clearly.

The gameplay is solid. it does exactly what it sets out to do. what makes COSMO PANIC different to some other wave based games is that we're defending something that's not ourselves. most of these games have the enemies come after us, but here the enemies are targeting a planet we're defending. we can bounce into some enemies without consequence, whilst others can paralyse us momentarily. 

we're not expected to always win and survive but it did feel like progress in this game slowed down too quickly. i was able to do the first 3 waves fine but that fourth wave was much more difficult even after spending money on upgrades. i'm concerned that progression in this game might be a little off and will need tweaking.

Version 1.1.1 Played

Demo Play Thursday - Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds from SEGA and Sonic Team.

I really enjoyed playing this DEMO. the game itself is already out now, i'm a bit behind with the demos after catching Covid, and it's been getting a lot of positive comments and praise so i was quite keen to try the demo and see what the fuss was about. 

On Switch, this demo looks great. loading wasn't too bad and the transition from world to world during the race was fine. there is a sense of speed as you race. i initially liked how the tutorial explained how the game is played but soon realized in the race that the tutorial failed to go over the buttons in the game. thankfully it doesn't take long to try them out, but in a race you're up against some strong competition.

In kart racing games, it's tough to make the opposition feel strong and fair. in the past, a criticism of Mario Kart games has been the "Rubber Banding" effect that would bring the other racers back closer to you. here in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds i didn't feel like the other racers were cheating. i could see them doing the tricks, aiming for speed boosts, and attacking other players. it felt like i was racing against some decent opposition. 

This meant that i failed to win all of the races i took part in. i typically won around 2 of the 4 races in the cup available in the demo. But as it is competitive and as the other racers are trying hard, the top positions would change race to race. i was racing against a rival and even tho i didn't win all of them, neither did they so i was always able to beat the rival.

The DEMO had some of the racers, some of the cars, and some of the customisation options. it was enough to mix and match and get a feel for how that works, it might be familiar to those who have played the older Sonic Racing games. there was also a Time Trial option which was also useful for practicing the tracks. it felt like there was about an hours worth of content and some replay-ability. i think this is a good demo for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and after playing it i do get a sense of why the game is getting more popular and i do want to play the game now.

Backlog Conquering - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy HD On PS3 - Part 5

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy from the 2012 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy that remastered the games and brought them into HD. This series is my first time playing any of the games from the initial trilogy, tho i have played the PSP game Daxter.

Check out the other parts of this play through:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fvi6KUY0vD8

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/bf7Obhhh8K4

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/oMqaSd8rB4k

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/OCL0AqLHW-o

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - Part 8

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS3 version of XBlaze Lost: Memories from Arc System Works and Aksys Games.

This is the eighth part. it ends on a sad note. I thought that this would be the final part but it isn't. there is maybe another part or two to go!

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fPjjATSfhcM

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/sY-nYy_MXxQ

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/w28xapHoB5w

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/_fXKI60OVu8

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/dM2MF4rEMWY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/3ZWKSu685X0

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/pfw0d4SU9n8

Cloud Monday - Cyberpunk 2077 - PT1 - Many Save Options And Frequent Auto Saves, But It Did Crash!

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

The launch of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 is quite infamous as the game was removed from the PSN because of the state of it at launch. it's 5 years later and the game has received numerous patches since launch and it's now available to play from the cloud. at around 64GB, cloud streaming such a big game is an interesting option so i was curious how it would hold up.

I haven't played this game before, nor do i have anything that can play this game other than the PS4, so for me the version of the game i get from the cloud looked great, apart from people's faces as for the most part the people we met kinda looked ugly. i also enjoyed the soundtrack. there were no audio issues from streaming it and the video quality was solid throughout, even with film grain turned on in the options.

But something that was immediately noticeable from the start was control lag. It's very rare for this to happen and so far only Rouge Legacy 2 had an option to solve it for cloud streaming. In Cyberpunk 2077 it's noticeable in two situations mainly, navigating the UI and gunplay. Cyberpunk 2077 does have extensive options, but there's nothing listed for cloud streaming. the options seem to say that they've been adjust for an optimum console experience, but don't say anything about a cloud streaming experience. it's too early to say if this will be an issue as we might be able to adjust to it over time or we may get upgrades which improve our shooting abilities.

As with any game being streamed, being able to save quickly or having a frequent auto save is very important. if we're going to be disconnected, there's only a 20 second warning before. by pressing options we're greeted with a couple of save options but neither explain what they do. unfortunately, we'll find out in Part 2 how good the auto save feature is as in this part, Cyberpunk 2077 crashes. 

i had just finished the tutorial, and it's a pretty good one showcasing that there are many different ways in dealing with enemies. but in the transition from tutorial back to the game, it seemed like the game hanged. it's a familiar experience to me as this happens on my PS4 when i play many Unity games and can be seen in my Foamstars live streams. but unlike in my experience when things continue like nothing had happened, in Cyberpunk 2077 the screen was very wrong and i couldn't use the options. i had no choice but to quit the game, so tune into Part 2 next week to see whether the auto save triggered after i completed the tutorial or not.

Mobile Friday - Disney Magic Match 3D - A Basic Chill Matchmaking Game With Hints of Disney

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Disney Magic Match 3D from developer Jam City on my iPhone 14 Pro.

I was curious about Disney Magic Match 3D, was it a game aimed at a younger audience or was there something here for everyone. i've got previous experience with such a game called TsumTsum, which to this day i see being played daily here in Japan. after playing it, i don't think Disney Magic Match 3D is aimed at any group in particular.

Disney Magic Match 3D surprised me in a few ways. firstly, and something i mentioned a few times in the video, was how chill it felt. the music felt lo-fi to the extent that i couldn't tell how it was even Disney. The tutorial was also very simple and clear and continued to offer hints throughout this video, but again it lacked that Disney charm. there was no mascot character guiding us. we were matching items from Disney, but not really doing much with them once the level was finished. with a few minor changes, i can't help but feel that Disney Magic Match 3D could just as easily be any other matchmaking game.

This lack of personality doesn't hinder the gameplay aspect. it's fine to play. the stages are simple, they are quick, and if you fail it's made clear that you can spend money to continue trying or loose a life. this simplicity, and with the accessibility of the tutorial, make Disney Magic Match 3D a fine game to play. 

another weird thing was that the game had icons on the bottom of the screen for in-game stuff that's "Coming Soon". these icons weren't greyed out nor did they have a lock on them like other content that we didn't have access to. there was no hint as to what these features were nor a date when they were coming. So why then, are there these buttons on the screen? with Disney Magic Match 3D being so accessible and simple, this seems like a big oversight that detracts from the good they've done so far.

the main reason why this video stops when it does is because the developers have been too generous at the start of the game. Like many, if not all, of these sort of games the start is much easier than the later stages. levels are easy, money is easy to earn, and rewards are easy to get. in Disney Magic Match 3D they are too easy to get and they're automatically earned and applied if needed. this meant i got into a situation where i knew if i completed another stage i would be stuck with infinity health for an hour. it's a nice gift for sure, but i was still using up a previous timed infinity health gift. if i had both, i would've had to keep on playing for hours or just loose it all. Disney Magic Match 3D really needs a way to save these bonus, or like Pokémon Go let us click and obtain them when we're ready. 

Disney Magic Match 3D is a fine game. it's accessible and simple with light puzzle elements, well for the first 27 levels. But it's surprising how chill it feels with it's music and how it's not all Disney all the time. hardcore fans were probably going to try it anyway, but it does feel fine for anyone interested in this matchmaking game.

Version 5.0.3 Played

Demo Play Thursday - Trails in the Sky: 1st Chapter On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Trails in the Sky: 1st Chapter from Nihon Falcom and GungHo Online Entertainment.

This is one of the longest videos in the Demo Play Thursday series, if not the longest, and i'm not surprised because all of the "The Legend of Heroes" game demos have been long, but unlike them this time i kept playing because i knew from experience that i should. this video only covers the opening story, a time skip, and the first quest of the game.

The demo starts with a screen that lets you buy the game, something that not all demos do. the option menu is quite extensive and has some nice customisations that typically come to early 2000 games remade in the modern day like speed up settings. the next 9 minutes is an opening set in the game's past before having an intro to the modern day setting of the game.

the story we start with is both main characters needing to head into town as today is their final test. their goal, to become a junior bracer. our characters and the world look great on the original Switch, and a launch model too. there was some pop in where shadows appeared before the grass that sat on top, but other than that everything looked and controlled great and it didn't feel like i was playing a lesser version of the game.

by about 40 minutes into the demo, it really started to feel slow. i had turned on auto messages, but they were slow. there was nothing in the options to increase the speed of the text bubbles. the default in this demo just happens to be really slow. i had set the difficult to easy as i wanted to sit back and enjoy the story, but i was starting to get frustrated by how slow things were starting to feel and the auto messages was a key part of this.

it would take about 40 minutes to start our final training quest and get all the back story of the world. having so much information available is useful as i've never played the original on PSP. but it was a lot to take in in such a short period of time. when it came to combat, the game had some nice pictures showing how to do it. as i've played previous The Legend of Heroes games i was also able to bring some of that past experience. what's nice about the combat is that if you're facing a low level enemy you can quicky dispatch them. but if there are many of them or something stronger, you can do a quick hit and then engage them in turn based combat.

it took a little under 20 minutes to complete this final training quest and i ended this video once we became junior bracers. unfortunately, i don't know how much longer this demo was. there was no information on the game's eShop page and the game itself gave no information as to how long and what was in this demo. another issue with this demo is how out of date it is to the game. the developers have done a final job continuously updating the game since it came out, but this demo hasn't been updated. i don't know how different this demo is, or how improved the game is, from what i played in this video.

Backlog Conquering - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy HD On PS3 - Part 4

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation3 version of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy from the 2012 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy that remastered the games and brought them into HD. This series is my first time playing any of the games from the initial trilogy, tho i have played the PSP game Daxter.

Check out the other parts of this play through:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fvi6KUY0vD8

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/bf7Obhhh8K4

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/oMqaSd8rB4k

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - Part 7

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS3 version of XBlaze Lost: Memories from Arc System Works and Aksys Games.

This is the seventh part. as usual, the video is broken up into two parts, the watching of memory fragments and then us finding memory fragments for the next time.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fPjjATSfhcM

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/sY-nYy_MXxQ

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/w28xapHoB5w

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/_fXKI60OVu8

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/dM2MF4rEMWY

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/3ZWKSu685X0

Cloud Monday - The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game - Pt2 - Auto Saves Start At Check Points

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game on PS4, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

After playing Part 1, i was left with a couple of questions i wanted to try and answer in this part regarding the game's Auto Save. Turns out, i got most of my answers immediately when my save launched as i start Part 2 not in the same place i finished Part 1. this was not expected as i thought i had quit the game after a save, but i hadn't. turns out i quit the game right before an auto save so i'm not going to blame it all on the game in hindsight.

After experiencing this i decided to check what an auto save after changing options would do. so whilst i'm sure the game is saving the new settings and possibly the amount of studs collected, when i reloaded that save i started back at a checkpoint. so in all, i did the section at the start of this video 3 times.

The gameplay was much smoother in this part than Part 1, with less artifacts from it being streamed to me. i discussed in Part 1 how that wasn't much of an issue as your character is essentially walking forward and attacking nearly everything around them. i still think that to be true, but The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game is a good looking game and looks best in todays video.

The big question to answer is whether The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game is a good game to stream from the cloud or not. i think it comes down to the save system as the gameplay holds up when things get rough. out of the recent games aimed at a younger audience, it's probably the most effected by it's auto save system and checkpointing. it's only around 18GB in size, too. so i would suggest downloading The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game if you're curious or want to play it, it's playable from the Cloud and if everything goes well then fine. but being streamed from the cloud has more of a chance of hurting the experience of playing the game. i would recommend checking it out via the cloud and then downloading your save and the game if you're interested in playing more.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/Z0M72CnqiSM

Mobile Friday - Coin&Dungeon: ReBurst - Simple Mechanics Feel Unbalanced And Slow, Not Much Story

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Coin&Dungeon: ReBurst from developer Ryogo Oka on my iPhone 14 Pro.

Version 1.2.2 Played

Demo Play Thursday - Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree from Brownies and Bandai Namco.

*There's a small section where the colors go weird. i accidentally forgot about the Switch dimming the screen, so i tried to manually fix it when making the video as it took a few minutes for me to realize that it had happened whilst i was recording the video.

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - Part 6

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS3 version of XBlaze Lost: Memories from Arc System Works and Aksys Games.

This is the sixth part. as usual, the video is broken up into two parts, the watching of memory fragments and then us finding memory fragments for the next time.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fPjjATSfhcM

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/sY-nYy_MXxQ

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/w28xapHoB5w

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/_fXKI60OVu8

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/dM2MF4rEMWY

Demo Play Thursday - Shinobi: Art of Vengeance On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Shinobi: Art of Vengeance from Lizardcube.

This is a fantastic DEMO for those curious about the game. it shows off the initial level  in the game and so appropriately it shows off a lot of basic things we can do in Shinobi. The tutorial is deep and accessible, showing a video how it's meant to look whilst giving clear instructions. One of my biggest concerns about Shinobi: Art of Vengeance was the difficulty level, but this demo has eased my concerns. i played at the standard difficulty level and felt that it was appropriate. it never felt too hard nor too easy. but there are many options we can tweak to customise the experience. for example, if you like the challenge posed by the enemy Ai but feel like their health is too high, you're able to reduce their health.

Backlog Conquering - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy HD On PS3 - Part 3

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy from the 2012 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy that remastered the games and brought them into HD. This series is my first time playing any of the games from the initial trilogy, tho i have played the PSP game #Daxter.

Check out the other parts of this play through:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fvi6KUY0vD8

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/bf7Obhhh8K4

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - Part 5

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS3 version of XBlaze Lost: Memories from Arc System Works and Aksys Games.

This is the third part and it starts from the third memory sequence, after we collected all the memories in Part 3, and ends when we descend down from the fourth Shadow Field into the fifth.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/fPjjATSfhcM

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/sY-nYy_MXxQ

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/w28xapHoB5w

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/_fXKI60OVu8

Cloud Monday - The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game - Another Game With No Manual Saves

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game on PS4, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Whilst i've played several of the LEGO games since the PS2 era, Ninjago isn't a LEGO property i've ever watched or engaged with. so as well as playing this as part of the recent look at "kids" games being streamed from the cloud, i was also a little curious.

Many of the "kids" games i've checked out recently have not had manual saves and The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game is not an exception. LEGO games typically have different types of game mechanics so finishing a stage or reaching a checkpoint can take more or less time depending on what you're doing. in this video, the tutorial wasn't too long but the flying chapter went really quick, and we finished with an on foot section that took maybe half of this video. this means that the auto save is sometimes frequent and other times less so. and then there's the snake. the game has not explained the snake. i'll check out the snake and menu saving in Part 2.

The stream this time wasn't as smooth as it had been recently, and i don't mean the sore throat and cough i currently have. there were examples of Stream Tearing where we saw occasional bits of grey on the screen. more frequently were what was either resolution drops or bitrate drops, or both. this wasn't much of an issue as i could just attack anything and make progress. but what got a little annoying my end was the audio. it was like the audio was peaking or clipping at the high end. it doesn't get in the way of gameplay, but it is a little annoying when listing to game audio. maybe dropping volume in the setting could help it sound less harsh at the top end. i didn't notice any issues with the controls and found the game to be quite quick and responsive.

Mobile Friday - Fire Emblem Shadows - Great Aspects Of Gameplay That Don't Quite Come Together

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Fire Emblem Shadows from developers Intelligent Systems on my iPhone 14 Pro.

Nintendo surprised released Fire Emblem Shadows this week. nothing was known about the game before it came out so it's been interesting playing it. the game's description on the app store is that it's a Real Time Tactics & Treachery game. one of the easier comparisons people will make is that it's an Among Us style game in the Fire Emblem universe, but after spending an hour with it that's not quite true.

It's disappointing to report that Fire Emblem Shadows has not one but two additional data downloads. thankfully the game lets us know, it suggests doing the download over wifi, and gives us the choice whether to download it or not, unlike some other games which'll just download the data. the first one isn't big, but what was nice was the video that played during it. the video has no words and yet successfully get's across the treachery aspect of the gameplay as a member of the group turns on the others. it's a bit of a shame that this same video plays during the second data download. it's unclear how this video fits into the game's story.

It's a high quality video that plays during the data downloads. the art is also high quality. the style of it is also quite striking and has an HD feel about it. it's very noticeable every time a new character appears and we get to see some great looking art. what's unfortunate is that there's not enough of it. the art isn't animated. so when characters start talking, the art will rarely change. each character has maybe 2 or 3 art pieces with slightly different faces, each showing a slightly different emotion. this means there were a few occasions where the story was being serious and the artwork had a big smile. tonally, what's being said and what's being shown can be quite hit or miss.

The key aspect of gameplay is the treachery system. when our team is attacking enemies, we need to pay attention to not just the enemy but also our team mates. someone on our team is working for the enemy and will attack the characters on our team. we need to pay attention to see what attacks are used by both our team mates on enemies and then on ourselves. during the tutorial, this came across quite well. but in gameplay, things move so quickly that this system actually becomes tough to follow. we have to check out health, the health of our team mates, who's attacking who, and then it ends with a vote before we've certain who's the bad guy. i did guess correctly each time, i did have a reason for choosing who i did, but it did feel a little lucky and not too satisfying. 

The way the story is told didn't work for me. that's not to say i didn't enjoy the story. i would like to get more of it and learn more about who the enemy really is. but the way it's told not only feels cheap, it feels disjointed and is hurt by the pauses when the loading screen hits. towards the end of the video we learn about what happened before the game start and it sounds like it would've made a fantastic video rather than just the few sentences it gets. 

The tutorial in Fire Emblem Shadows starts off good. the game's pace is slowed down and each aspect of gameplay is briefly mentioned. but it's not long before things get confusing. there's a bar top middle and it came across that we can only do actions when it's our color. but the game, outside of the tutorial, starts doing stuff outside of the player/enemy color. then much later we get the scenario where our characters are knocked out but we're still able to attack and the whole revive mechanic wasn't explained in this scenario. the tutorial also kinda fails on the main home screen. the game suggests checking out the red dots but the tutorial explanations feel even shorter here, to the point that i didn't initially grasp how the online has to be played to progress the single player story. The Online mode gives us a choice between wanting to play as good, bad, or let the game decide. Our team fights an enemy. but we have to watch out for the bad guy. get it right, we get points, get enough points and the story unlocks the next chapter.

There are many aspects of Fire Emblem Shadows that individually are good, or have good ideas, but they don't really come together in a satisfying way. i'll keep the game and see what updates come to it, but as it is Fire Emblem Shadows isn't for me. i do think it's worth checking out because of it's interesting ideas. but as a game, as a whole, it doesn't quite land.

Version 1.0.1 Played